Government says no decision on purchase of Chinese vaccine tested in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: The government said on Saturday that it has yet to decide whether Pakistan would buy a Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine of which late-stage clinical trial in the country is going to be completed next week.

Pakistan launched the trial in September for Ad5-nCoV, a vaccine candidate co-developed by CanSino Biologics and a Chinese military-backed research unit. The tests have been carried out by Pakistan’s National Institute of Health (NIH) on more than 15,000 volunteers at hospitals in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. 

“No final decision is made yet as to which vaccine we are going to procure,” Health Ministry spokesman Sajid Hussain Shah told Arab News.

“We can’t say at this stage that we’re going to procure any Chinese vaccine or from any other country. It’s all premature,” he said, adding that first all trial and research data will have to be reviewed.

The vaccine trial results are expected to be out in January as the last batch of 3,000 volunteers will receive their dose next week.

“We are hopeful to publish results of the COVID-19 vaccine in January,” Dr. Javed Akram, vice chancellor of University of Health Sciences in Lahore, where trials are being held, told Arab News.

“The results of the vaccine are encouraging so far,” he said, “It is up to the government now if they procure this vaccine for the general public.”

In November, Islamabad allocated $150 million to procure COVID-19 vaccines from different pharmaceutical companies. It is also expecting to receive free vaccine doses from GAVI, the global vaccine alliance, to immunize 20 percent of its population by the third quarter of 2021.

However, experts say that until the end of 2021, Pakistan may be unable to buy any other vaccine than the Chinese one as manufacturers are currently supplying only developed and wealthy countries.

“China is the best option for us to procure the vaccine as its trials are conducted here, and we have access to all the research data,” Pakistan Medical Association secretary-general Dr. Qaisar Sajjad said.

He told Arab News that many doctors and nurses had volunteered for the vaccine trials and had not developed any side effects.

“If final results of the Chinese vaccine show that it is safe and effective, we should immediately procure it and start mass vaccination to get rid of the disease,” he said.